Congratulations to Texas Tailwheel Flight Training student Marcus on finishing up his tailwheel endorsement this week. We did about 7 hours of tailwheel flying in our Cessna 120 between Dallas Executive Airport and Grand Prairie Municipal for his landings. Good job!

On the way home with our new Cessna 120 I saw some spectacular views. This is near Guadalupe Peak at the corner of Texas and New Mexico. I've been past this place before, but it never ceases to amaze me.

Mountain flying presents some serious challenges for pilots and many Texas pilots have never flown in the kinds of conditions that you can find yourself in in mountainous country. If you will be flying into these areas, at a minimum read up and talk to instructors who know more about mountain flying, or better yet, go take a course somewhere where experienced mountain pilots can give you good training.

We took the Cessna 120 for a short hop today over to Lancaster Regional (LNC) and Dallas Executive (RBD) and then came home. She did well. The food at the cafe there at Lancaster was pretty tasty for breakfast, too!

Texas Tailwheel is introducing our private pilot ground school classes in the DFW area at Dallas Executive Airport. If you are interested in attending the ground school, call us at 469-740-2222. Leave a message if we are out flying and do not answer.

Right now we will be holding a Monday evening class, but we may expand to an additional class night on either Friday or Saturday evening as well.

Class Information:

Time: Every Monday night at 6:30 PM starting Jan. 18th.If you can't make the first few classes, LATE STARTS are OK!

Semester: 8 weeks with one make-up session if needed. If you miss a few of the first classes, but still want to attend, come on out! We intend to start over for a new batch of students at the end of the course.

If you are already flying as a student, bring a POH, or a download equivalent for the aircraft you will be flying.

Cost: $400 up front, $65 per class ($520) if pay-as-you-go.

Other requirements: If you come to the first class as an up front payment and decide not to continue, we will refund $350 to you. Otherwise, the charge is a flat rate for the entire course.

Personal sessions are available for those that cannot complete the course, or cannot participate in the scheduled classes, but we charge our regular instruction rates for those classes.

Syllabus: A syllabus will be made available to those enrolling in the course. The course will cover everything required in FAR 61.105(b). If you complete the course, we will provide appropriate logbook entries to reflect that.

This course is perfect for any private pilot students working on getting their license to fly an airplane. It doesn't matter if you are flying a Diamond, Cessna, Piper, Cirrus, Aeronca, Taylorcraft, Luscombe, Light Sport aircraft, or any other type. This course would also be useful for pilots getting back into aviation that are rusty and unfamiliar with the current environment.

Your flight instructor has been teaching for more than six years and has a full time job flying with an aerial photography company. He flies over 750 NM every week in small aircraft and has experience in a broad range of light aircraft and conditions.

So the Cessna 120 we just purchased will be used for flight training, but it will take us a couple of weeks to get her up to speed. First on our list has to do with avionics! No, we're not going to bring her into the "glass age" as we believe that good old "steam gauges" are just fine. So what are we going to do to her? Stay tuned...